Ah… Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood buried in snow. It’s so majestic and beautiful – unfortunately, it’s not happening this year. Today, the 12th of February 2015, snow levels at the base and summit are 28” and 39” respectively. The Summit at Snoqualmie near Seattle, which normally has snow well over my head, has 15” and is currently closed. Unbelievable. It’s the worst snow year in my 66 years of skiing.
Last week, honoring reservations we made in December, four of us checked into the Lodge at Timberline on Super Bowl Sunday. As Samuel Johnson said (about second marriages) our ski vacation was a “triumph of hope over experience.” It was raining as we checked in and continued for two days while we watched children playing on the glazed snow through the Lodge’s rain soaked windows.
But, we hung in there. The old WPA-built lodge is magnificent and we had plenty of time to learn about its history and the amazing craftsmanship that went into its construction. It was built in 1937 in the depths of the Great Depression. Everything was made on site by local residents – from the giant rock and log construction to the ironwork handrails, hand woven bedspreads and curtains, carved wooden panels, and the social realism paintings that were the style of the period. The workers, mostly untrained, were paid 90 cents an hour and glad to have the jobs. I was there as a busboy one winter during college and it was interesting for me to go back and see it again.
With two rainy days behind us, on the morning of Day Three we awoke to 4” of fresh snow and an outside temperature of 34°. It still looked dicey but we decided to give it a go before checking out early and heading for Portland. There was nothing to lose. After all, age has its advantages and I ski for free these days at Timberline. We suited up, I squeezed my size 10 feet into my new $700 Lange boots and we were off. For an hour we had decent conditions – untracked snow, and the mountain to ourselves. It was really pretty good – and then it turned to mashed potatoes and we turned our attention to Portland.
Portland is one of the most livable small cities in America but Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, the former Saturday Night Live regulars, have given Portland a whole new persona called Portlandia. Like the Daily Show or Colbert there is truth underlying their TV series spoof of the artisanal, handcrafted self-absorbed lifestyle of the Rose City. So… since we were in Portlandia we made lemonade with Meyer lemons (provenance Marin County), Fiji water, ginger sugar and a sprig of fresh mint. So special.
Having turned the Timberline experience into lemonade, we arrived in Portland itself and headed straight for Kenny and Zuke’s Delicatessen where we tucked into its justly famous corned beef sandwiches, sides of potato salad, and washed it all down with local craft beer. Perfect. Then it was off to Powell’s Books, one of America’s great independent bookstores, where we dropped into a reading by author Alexandra Fuller whose most memorable line, for me, was “Shouldn’t there be a Statute of Limitations on how long children can hate their parents?”
After soaking up the vibe at Powell’s we walked down to Living Room Theaters where the five Oscar-nominated short films of 2015 were showing. Very Portlandia, complete with draft beer and snacks to take into the screening room. BTW: the short films from Israel, UK, Iran, Northern Ireland, and China are sensational. Each one can stand-alone. It will be interesting to see who wins.
A good night’s sleep at Portland’s venerable Benson Hotel, still a jewel in Portland’s crown, gave us energy to attack Portlandia another day. It was back to Kenny and Zuke’s for a breakfast of bagels and lox and a latte assist from Stumptown Coffee Roasters next door. All of the sites so far, the Benson, Powell’s, K and Z’s, and Living Room Theaters are within 4 blocks of each other, but we needed the car for the next adventure, Portland’s Japanese Garden.
Seattle’s Japanese Garden is unified and artful but Portland’s 5.5-acre park is composed of five distinct and distinctive garden styles from the rock and sand garden above to the strolling pond garden, the teahouse garden, the flat garden and the natural garden. All are stunning and integrated in a seamless display of Japanese garden art from the giant evergreens to the smallest water feature.
From the Japanese Garden we drove to the Pittock Mansion, the former home of The Oregonian newspaper founder Henry Pittock. The French-Renaissance style home was purchased by the City of Portland in 1964 and totally renovated. Although it seems like the 17th and 18th century mansions of Europe it was built in the early 20th century. Today it is furnished, not with the original furniture, but with authentic pieces from several different periods that show off the architecture in a dramatic way.
Portland is justly famous for its food scene its super hot restaurant of the moment is Pok Pok, where Chef/owner Andy Ricker serves up spicy northern Thai street food. When we told people in Seattle we were going to Portland three of our friends told us about Pok Pok before we had time to tell them that we already had reservations there. It did not disappoint and it was definitely different, from the flavored vinegar drinks to the caramelized skin on the house-specialty chicken wings. It was all good – and spicy.
Sated by our meal at Pok Pok we staggered across the street to Salt and Straw, an ice cream shop that was so crowded at 10pm on a Thursday night in February we had to stand in line for 10 minutes. I passed on the balsamic blueberry and had a double salted caramel with candied orange peel. Now that is Portlandia at its best. See what I mean?
Our new Portland friends, Deborah Mandell and Roy Pulvers, put us up that night at their house high on a hill overlooking Beaverton. Deborah served up more bagels and lox in the morning, and with a short maintenance stop to buy more books at Powell’s and a refueling stop at Peet’s Coffee we set off for home with full stomachs, new friends, a pile of books and a great appreciation for the Rose City.
It was all Portlandia. lemonade and all. Thanks our friends, old and new, who made it memorable.
